Suspended Red Sox pitcher watches game from bleachers
Suspended Boston Red Sox reliever Joe Kelly isn't allowed to be in the dugout or the press box at Fenway Park as part of his punishment for his part in last week's benches-clearing brawl with the New York Yankees.
But Kelly really wanted to be on hand for the series against the Tampa Bay Rays over the weekend. So he did what any other Red Sox fan would do and sat in the stands.
Kelly said he watched some of Friday's game from atop the fabled Green Monster, then began watching Sunday's game in a suite before moving down to join fans in the bleachers.
He posed for pictures with fans and moved around the stadium in a superstitious bid to help the Red Sox score some runs.
"Me: hey Joe mind taking a picture with my boy it's his first game. Joe: also my 1st game in the bleachers no problem.. I'm in timeout," one fan tweeted in a caption of Kelly and his young son.
"I was in the suite and we weren't getting any runs and we were losing, so I moved and went out to the bleachers. We got a couple of runs," Kelly said, per WEEI. "I moved to another location and that didn't work, so I moved to the Sam Adams Party Deck and we ended up getting the runs."
Whether his mojo helped the team or not, the Red Sox got an eighth-inning run to pick up a 4-3 win and improve to an MLB-best 20-7 for the season.
Kelly returns to the Red Sox on Wednesday.
--Field Level Media
